Saturday, July 02, 2011

Triple browser trial

kw: product testing, reviewing

I started this post using Google Chrome version 12.0.742.112. I use it rarely, but I'm checking out how it works for making Blogger posts. I first prepared the labels and copied them to the "kw" line in the Compose screen. That worked fine (In an older version of Chrome the copy came with some HTML tags that changed the font).

The other features I'll test are paragraphing and font styles. Looking in the Edit Html screen at this point, I find that paragraphs are delimited with "div" tags. I haven't figured out how to trick Chrome into showing the arrow brackets, so we'll have to live with the quote as a substitute. To put the extra line between paragraphs, it uses two sets of "div" tags and a return between.

Next, this text is italicized and this text is bolded. The tags Chrome used are "i" and "b". So far so good. Now I'll switch browsers and continue.

I am continuing with MS Internet Explorer version 9.0.8112.16421. One thing I noticed right away is that the paragraphs left by Chrome now have an extra line between them in Compose mode. Older versions of IE liked to use "p" tags between paragraphs. Another is, that when I use the down arrow on the last line of text, the cursor goes to the end in Chrome, but not in IE.

This begins a new paragraph. Checking… OK, IE is continuing the "div" tags but not adding a return between them. Font styles:

The italic and bold text tags IE uses are "em" and "strong". Now I'll check two more features in a fresh post and return with results. Here we go: Firstly, if I put a label in the labels window and try to copy it into the post, it will not paste. That's one negative mark for IE (This works in FF). Secondly, typing a few paragraphs into an empty post resulted in the paragraphs being separated by returns, not tags. While this is a violation of HTML protocol, it is shared by Firefox.

At this point I'll switch browsers once again.

Now I am using Mozilla Firefox version 5.0. (No long version numbers here!) I first went to the test post that I'd put "p" tags into. Firefox continues them. This one still has the two ways of using "div" tags, and FF has responded as Chrome would have, by showing a double space only if there is an extra set of "div" tags. Depending on the browser you are using, the IE section above may look all jammed together.

Looking in the Edit Html screen, I see that, inside the last "div" section left by IE, FF is simply putting double returns between my paragraphs. Finally, I know FF uses the most doctrinaire font style tagging: the italic and bold tags are "span" tags with a "style" modifier inside:

span style="font-style: italic;"span style="font-style: bold;"

inside the arrow brackets. While the three browsers try to produce the same look, I suspect this post, with its mixed styles, will not look uniform in any browser!